Friday, June 22, 2018

Mallorca Mini-break part 1

We thought we'd take a long weekend trip to Mallorca once school was out for the Summer to enjoy the sun and surf!  We booked cheap airfare through Ryanair, a house on booking.com, and a rental car and were all set!  Then, less than 48 hours before our trip, Ryanair canceled our flight.  Also, I couldn't find our house booking in my email and ended up booking another house through airbnb, then I found the booking.com one and had to cancel that one with a nasty surcharge.  I was able to get us on another flight leaving Sunday instead of Saturday from Frankfurt-Hahn airport instead of Frankfurt airport, which was great, but then had to change our house reservation (AGAIN) and car rental reservation. It was a LOT of work and in the end we would only have two and a half days in Mallorca.  But off we went!

We arrived at Palma airport in the late afternoon and I was totally confused about our car rental situation, so we took a shuttle to an off-site place that did not have our reservation, so then we had to take the shuttle back to the airport where we finally got our car and headed to the house we had rented.  The house was super unique for us.  It was advertised as a mansion built in the 1800s, and the photos looked super cool.  It was also located in the center of the island, which meant we could get pretty much anywhere by car in about an hour.  Here are some photos of the house.






The house was cool, but dark, full of antiques, and Toby thought it was very creepy.  We could also hear every word spoken by people on the street in front of the house at night.  And every car or motorcycle that whizzed by.  The beds were also super awful. So while the house was interesting and a neat place to stay, it was not at all our style, and I don't think I would stay there again.

The next morning we set out in search of a hike.  I had read that Valldemossa was a cool town in the Serra de Tramuntana so we headed there.  This mountain range is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it was very beautiful.  The town of Valldemossa was full of tourists, but still really cute.  Frederic Chopin and George Sand (the pen name of French author Amantine Dupin) once spent the Winter here having a love affair. I can see the appeal... of the chosen location, not the affair obviously.




Of course we found the local playground.

And an awesome old olive tree. 
What we didn't find was a hiking trail.  C'est la vie. 

We stopped in a cafe for an early lunch before driving to the beach and enjoyed freshly squeezed orange juice.

And bagel sandwiches with cream cheese, rucola, tomato, and jamon.  I love fresh food!

We decided to opt for an urban hike and made another loop around the outskirts of the village which gave us some lovely views.




It was a lovely morning in the mountains, but we were all ready to get to the beach!  In about an hour we drove from this spot on the western side of the island to Es Trenc Beach on the southeast side of the island.

Mallorca claims to have 262 beaches.  Of those, 40 are considered Blue Flag beaches with lifeguards, groomed beaches, and reliably good water quality.  So how to choose which one to visit?  It was tough but we eventually chose Es Trenc because it is more of a natural beach- like in the US I would compare it to Chicoteague.  We drove far out a narrow road, parked in a lot, and then walked to the beach.  There was a snack shack there but no other services.  The water was GORGEOUS and completely clear.

There were hardly any waves, and the water was shallow, so the kids could play quite safely.




If you zoom in on this photo, you will see Jake and I waving from way out there.  You will also see that the water was only waist deep at that point for me.

We stayed for about 4-5 hours, until everyone was totally exhausted and hungry, and then we set out to get some dinner. It was around 7 pm.

The thing about Spain is, they don't eat dinner until about 9 pm.  We had an extremely difficult time finding any restaurants open at the "early" hour of 7 pm.  We stopped at Carrefour, a French grocery chain, and picked up yogurt, fruit, sandwich stuff, and snacks for the next couple of days.  Then we finally ended up at a mall where about three of the eight restaurants were open.  We picked this spot because they had tapas, and it wasn't McDonalds.

Ironically, none of us ordered tapas.  The boys got burgers, the girls got pizza, Rob ordered a steak, and I had this eggs, jamon, and potato thing. We all wanted filling food after a long day in the sun!

After dinner we drove back to the house for baths and bed!  Jake and I took a quick walk to the nearby church first though. We had heard the bells from this church until 11 pm the night before, and from 7 am in the morning, and wanted to check it out.  They were getting ready for an evening mass though (Mallorca is 98% Roman Catholic) and we looked more than grubby, so we headed right back home to wash up and get to bed.  We had a big second day planned.

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